4. CANADA - #24. Unfortunately, a significant drop after #12 for DROE. Just in the US...

5. FINLAND - #18. After the spectacular #4 for the last album, this doesn't impress. Let's hope the manage to advance a bit.

6. GERMANY - #11. They fell out of top 10 here as well. Too bad.

7. HUNGARY - #31. This is the most spectacular fail, after topping the charts 4 years ago. Perhaps last time the album release coincided with a tour and this time not. Still waiting for any news about DROE being certified gold in the land of the Magyars.

8. ITALY - #28 (?). It was #13 the last time, but I don't know whether it was the general chart for everybody or some "indie" one. This time it is the overall one. They never sold much there, so it is rather good news.

9. JAPAN - #42. DROE was at #57. They evened what TFOD did. I saw a list where it said BOTS sold over 1.6 k copies in its first week in Japan earlier today, but can't find it now. Will have to dig it up later.

10. THE NEDERLANDS - #72 looks pretty poor after #32 last time, especially that this has always been an important market for the band.

11. SCOTLAND - #26. I think it's their first time ever on this one.

12. SOUTH KOREA - it apparently made #18 on the international chart (http://gaonchart.co.kr/main/section/chart/album.gaon?nationGbn=E), but the week was counted from Oct 23rd to Oct 29th, so we'll have to wait and see how it did the next week to compare it with DROE's #10 on the international chart and #91 on the general one.

13. SWEDEN - #43 is yet another big disappointment when you have in mind the wonderful #8 for DROE.

14. UK - #43. This is their best since Souls of Black. DROE was at #57.

15. US - ??? I honestly don't know what's going on with all the new charts Billboard is publishing these days. The album has reached #9 at Top Album Sales (DROE was #12 - but is it the same as Billboard top 200 - does this mean the actually broke into the top 10!? I've yet to find out...Ok, found it: This week's top-selling albums across all genres, ranked by sales data as compiled by Nielsen Music), #71 at Artists 100, #2 at Top Rock Albums after Avenged Sevenfold (DROE was #1 and managed 3 weeks on this chart), #2 at Hard Rock Albums (DROE was #1 and managed 8 long weeks), #1 at Independent Albums (just as DROE), #3 at Tastemaker Albums (DROE was #2; it's a list of top-selling albums based on an influential panel of stores comprised of independent retailer coalitions and smaller regional chains, ranked by sales data as compiled by Nielsen Music), #3 at Vinyl Albums (I don't think this chart was up for DROE). We'll have to wait a bit more 'til Billboard updates its page, but I've seen the number 15k and something as far as sales go, which would indicate a 25% drop when compared to DROE. I still have to confirm this.

Well, for now it seems that it surely won't outperform DROE, chart-wise. Still, I hope that we'll be getting more numbers soon and the lack of chart positions for e.g. Denmark, Switzerland, Norway, Austria, Spain, France, Ireland and Poland doesn't mean the album didn't chart there at all. I know for a fact that a lot of charts haven't been published yet so let's wait a little bit more.

I get the impression that this time NB didn't do as much to promote the release as last time. Actually, it seems like the band members themselves could have done better in this department too. Not that Chuck's interviews about the painful process of recording hurt much and discouraged fans, but the process itself (Eric doing pretty much everything single-handedly) could make for the other guys (save for Chuck) not identifying themselves with the record so much. I don't know. Maybe they just picked a tougher week for release this time or had bad luck.

Obviously, it's the music that matters, but I'd love to see them get the worldwide recognition they deserve.

CZECH REPUBLIC - #15, which is good news considering the fact that DROE was at #45 and TFOD at #47.
SWITZERLAND - #16 which is a slight drop after DROE landed on #10.

As far as sales go, we know the album sold:

2.497 copies in the UK (to land on #43). I don't remember the exact number with DROE, but it was a little over 2k I think.
16.975 copies in the US (#20 on The Billboard 200). This is a tad lower than the approx. 20.500 for DROE.

17k isn't very bad for the US, but, yeah, I'd hoped for some more too.

As for the UK - they've actually never been very strong there, charts-wise. Some bands do well on certain markets and on some other - not really. Machine Head is one band that's huge in the UK, but in most other countries Testament sells way more than them. Another weak market for Testament has always been Greece, in spite of numerous gigs there. I don't know about Latin America, but they seem to have toured there a million times and never had a chart entry in any country, but perhaps it's natural that local artists take all the spots.

EDIT: news from AUSTRIA - they landed at #23, just like TFOD. DROE was on #21, so they're pretty stable there.

I'll second that. Maybe NB thought it would sell enough by itself and didn't want to put too much money into it, being mad at the band for them taking it that long again. BTW, their record deal has expired, hasn't it? It probably will be extended, I just wonder on what terms. Hopefully no one leaves the band on this occassion.

More news:

POLAND - #11. A slight drop as compared to DROE's #8, but still that's the highest spot this year along with Germany.SPAIN - #53. DROE was on #57, so 53, even if not impressive by itself, is a sign of progress on this difficult market.

I don't know if their contract is up but I would imagine they continue with them. NB probably did think they didn't have to do much.
But they do! People's attention spans and memories are so short these days. You gotta keep pounding. I also think four years is too long for the same reason, unless you're some huge band you lose momentum.
Some ground gained in Spain!

I figure that would mean 70 this week and 70 total. In the case of debuting albums numbers on both sides of the "/" are the same. With albums that have been on the chart for more than a week the number on the right is bigger, so it probably is the aggregate number of albums sold. But 70 is shockingly little, although I don't know the reality of SK. Still, that's a very populated country.

Wonder if that's Testament or Amon Amarth's fans. I personally can't understand the phenomenon of the latter. I got to see them after Coroner's show a couple of years ago, but left after 3 songs. It was so generic. I couldn't believe all the enthusiasm.

Second week in Hungary and we have a progress - #23!
Second week in Germany - it lands on #60.
Second week in S.Korea - it falls down to #77.
It fell off the charts in Australia and in the Netherlands.

The album DID NOT chart in Norway, Denmark and Ireland for instance. Or anywhere in South America for that matter. This info puts Testament on the map so to speak.

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